Beginner's guide: the first 100 rounds

If you have just started and the manual still leaves you wondering where to click, this page walks you through roughly the first 100 rounds in order. Every step says WHERE to find it and WHAT it is good for. The starter missions (Command center → First steps) follow the same order and pay credits for it.

Before you start: three rules

A round is 60 minutes, and EVERYTHING happens at the round change: production is credited, buildings and units are finished, fleets arrive. You do not need to be online all the time — just do not leave your queues empty.
A planet can run 1 building and 1 research at the same time. If either queue is empty, that round is lost. Make it the first question every time you log in: is something running in both?
For the first 72 rounds (3 days) you are in the Collector galaxy, where nobody can attack you. Spend that time on your economy, not on an army.

Rounds 1–10: put your asteroids into production

WHERE: Economy → Resources, "Into production".

Your starting planet has metal and crystal asteroids (roids), plus a few unidentified ones. You decide what the unidentified ones produce — each one costs metal to put into production, and every further one costs a little more.

Make the first one NARION: your starting planet has no narion roid at all, and narion is the fuel of your fleets. Without it no fleet will ever leave the hangar.

Meanwhile start a building too (Economy → Technology) — see the next step.

WHAT FOR: roids give you most of your income, and everything else is built from it. A player producing all three resources is miles ahead of one producing only two.

Rounds 10–40: resource buildings

WHERE: Economy → Technology, the "Resources" branch. You work your way up the branch from the bottom: each item unlocks the next.

Metal mine and Metal processing plant — each +1,000 metal per hour.
Opencast mining (research) → Crystal processing plant: +1,000 crystal per hour.
Fuel Refining (research) → Narion mine: +1,000 narion per hour.

These buildings produce INDEPENDENTLY of your roids, forever. The sooner they stand, the more they pay back.

At the end of the chain come the DOUBLING buildings (Ore mine and the like): they double the base production you have so far, so they pay off best after the +1,000 buildings. No need to rush them.

TIP: building and research are two separate queues. While a building is under construction, the next research can already run in the research queue — even one from a different branch (see below).

Rounds 30–60: finding new asteroids

Sooner or later you run out of unidentified roids. New ones can only be found with probes, and for those you need two factories.

WHERE: Technology, the "Reconnaissance" branch, in this order:

Rocket technology (research) → Missile silo factory (building): unlocks the Carrier rocket.
Asteroid probe technology (research) → Asteroid probe factory (building): unlocks the Asteroid probe.

Then Assembly → Satellite: build Carrier rockets and Asteroid probes. Every probe you launch uses up 1 Carrier rocket, so always keep enough rockets.

You launch the probes on the Economy → Resources page. What they find are new unidentified roids — put them into production, just like at the start.

WHAT FOR: more roids = more income = everything else goes faster. This is the most important long-term investment in the game.

Rounds 50–80: defence (BVR)

Once your protection ends you can be attacked — and the mercenaries (the computer-run opponents of the game) also go raiding on their own now and then. By then you want some defence standing.

A BVR (planetary defence system) stays on your planet and fights on its own when you are attacked — it needs no fuel and you do not need to be online.

WHERE: Technology, the "Planetary defense" branch: Identification system (research) → Laser cannon factory (building). Then Assembly → BVR: Laser turret.

On the Fleet page, in the "Base" row, set your base formation to "Sphere (defensive)": the base always defends, so staying power is what counts for it.

WHAT FOR: the BVRs shoot at the attacker's ships in every battle, so attacking a defended planet is expensive. Players looking for easy loot tend to move on.

Rounds 60–100: your first fleet

SHIPS: Assembly → Ship, under the Fighter class, the "Helium" — every species can build it, without prerequisites, and it is cheap. 20 of them are enough to start with.

INTO A FLEET: Fleet page — move the ships from the base into Fleet 1. Only ships in a fleet can leave; the ones on the base stay home and defend.

FORMATION: for the fleet, "Wedge (offensive)" — more damage, but you take more too. It can be changed at any time, even under way.

SCOUTING: Assembly → Ship, the "Spy" (also a Fighter, no prerequisites). Put it into a separate fleet (e.g. Fleet 2) so it does not tie up your battle fleet; action "Scout", target a mercenary. The report arrives on the Espionage page: you see what you are up against. Attacking blind is the most expensive mistake.

ATTACK: send the battle fleet with the "Attack" action to the weakest mercenary — the mission text gives its name and coordinates. It does not retaliate, and you can attack the same mercenary once a day.

After the battle, the News and the battle report show you what happened and why. Do not worry if the first one goes wrong: that is how you learn what fires at what.

REMEMBER: launching a fleet costs narion. Without narion production your fleet stays in the hangar.

If you are stuck

A unit does not show up, or is locked on the Assembly page: its card tells you which building it needs. You build that on the Technology page.
Not sure what to build: look at the "First steps" box in the Command center — it always shows the next step, with a "Go" button.
The details of a mechanic (combat, scouting, scoring): the Manual covers them module by module.
Ask on your galaxy forum, or on our Discord — it has an #english-help channel, and the link is in the game menu.

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